The contributions of current agricultural practices to
environmental degradation and the social problems facing
agricultural regions are well known. However, landscape-scale
alternatives to current trends have not been fully explored nor
their potential impacts quantified. To address this research need,
our interdisciplinary team designed three alternative future
scenarios for two watersheds in Iowa, USA, and used spatially
explicit models to evaluate the potential consequences of changes in
farmland management. This paper summarizes and integrates the
results of this interdisciplinary research project into an
assessment of the designed alternatives intended to improve our
understanding of landscape ecology in agricultural ecosystems and to
inform agricultural policy. Scenario futures were digitized into a
Geographic Information System (GIS), visualized with maps and
simulated images, and evaluated for multiple endpoints to assess
impacts of land use change on water quality, social and economic
goals, and native flora and fauna. The Biodiversity scenario,
targeting restoration of indigenous biodiversity, ranked higher than
the current landscape for all endpoints (biodiversity, water
quality, farmer preference, and profitability). The Biodiversity
scenario ranked higher than the Production scenario (which focused
on profitable agricultural production) in all endpoints but
profitability, for which the two scenarios scored similarly, and
also ranked higher than the Water Quality scenario in all endpoints
except water quality. The Water Quality scenario, which targeted
improvement in water quality, ranked highest of all landscapes in
potential water quality and higher than the current landscape and
the Production scenario in all but profitability. Our results
indicate that innovative agricultural practices targeting
environmental improvements may be acceptable to farmers and could
substantially reduce the environmental impacts of agriculture in
this region.